Police: New Delhi gang rape suspect kills self in jail

NEW DELHI (AP) -- The main suspect in the gang rape and fatal beating of a woman on a New Delhi bus, an attack that horrified Indians and set off national protests, committed suicide in jail Monday, officials said.

Ram Singh, who is accused of driving the bus on which a 23-year-old student was raped and fatally assaulted by a group of six men in December, hung himself with his own clothes, a police official at Tihar jail said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

Singh, along with four other men on trial with him on rape, murder and abduction charges, had been under a suicide watch, the official said. The sixth accused is being tried and jailed separately because he is a juvenile.

If convicted, they could face the death penalty.

The woman and a male friend were attacked after boarding the bus Dec. 16 as they tried to return home after watching a movie, police say. The six men, the only occupants of the private bus, beat the man with a metal bar, raped the woman and used the bar to inflict massive internal injuries to her, police say. The victims were dumped naked on the roadside, and the woman died from her injuries two weeks later in a Singapore hospital.

The brutal attack set off nationwide protests about India's treatment of women and spurred the government to hurry through a new package of laws to protect them.